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haha those are some ropey looking leaf, looks like free internet huang pian, not 1080p blu-ray huang pian.

Shoved it all into my gaiwan & it was a few steeps in when I thought ‘must go on steepster!’, so i stopped what i was doing, jumped up & started writing this review.

I havent tasted this taste before & i like it. Its the kind I can mash about with my gaiwan lid & leave for a while & the sour taste hangs around in my mouth.. i just dont know how to describe it but the complexity is something I really go for, maybe not all the time but its nice to have this taste around for when you want something Yiwu-but-sour.

Its a weird one, defo not to everyones tastes but that price is great.

Liked it, nice & sweet. slightly herby-camphor but no cooling, I was hoping a bit more bitter or lively tongue with strong huigan, but thats my preference & this i think my gf would like.

Dark leaf, dark reddish orange soup, sweet raisin, sweet feel & some other natural/woodsy Yiwu notes. Not bitter, fairly refined & elegant taste. Sweet fruit aroma. The woody note shares a similarity with Wuyi Oolong, its a really easy drinking one.

Later steeps 5+ there was a gorgeous complex stonefruity/natural/menthol/woodsy flavour. It had a kaleidoscope huigan effect which stayed kept me on my toes – these steeps were really good.

By steep 10 or so, i was in the 1:20 range, the flavour huigan started subsiding but there was still something natural there, the soup was still pretty dark.

I hit this with 90c into my thermos so, 85c or so, & did 1/5/10/15/20/25/30/40/60/1:20 etc

This tea getting bumped up because its mellowed out now & the (way too strong when new) roast takes a backseat to nice classic wuyi rock mountain oolong cream/nuts, similar to fruity cashew or melon seeds. after the first few steeps this is the dominant flavour & its making me much happier. There is also some straight fruity sweet & just a much more pleasurable balance – the lack of the bitter char is helping.

I would definitely consider buying more, but knowing that you need a couple of years on it to taste good.

Honey & apricot aroma from the steeped leaf in my smaller gaiwan, have been recently enjoying using this slightly smaller size compared to my 100ml ones. Not sure how smaller it is, I need to check it.

Anyway, after a 10 minute rest the first two steeps were quick, <5 secs & the taste was sour sweet apricot, but somehow encased in a rounded soft yiwu milk-body. Tongue tingles, there seemed to be two kinds of sour taste, a very pleasant soft main body sour & a slightly sharp finish. Its one of those lively tastes that overload my tastebuds a bit.

Energy is pretty instant, by the third steep i felt it hit me, a pretty strong vibe. Perhaps even a little too strong for me.

Subsequent steeps centred around this sour flavour, its slightly aged leafy without being dominant. I taste & feel it slightly milky but others have called this rounded, i guess milk is a bit rounded, I actually see this as milk though. Whatevs.

I had to stop this for a bit because too much tea in a short space of time but by the later steeps this soft round sourness was still prevailing, along with the liveliness on my tongue. Once it got to a few minute steeps I had to stop due to a bit too much caffeine.

A nice tea for fans of the yiwu thing, definitely pleasantly sour. Was never too fruity or leafy or sour or woodsy or aged, but with a lively tongue & rounded body. Less of the stonefruit sweetness, i didnt get so much of a cooling huigan that others did.

re-review as I found this works a lot better in small gaiwain, slightly overleafed (thanks whoever suggested that in the tea of the day thread) & 70c water, treating like a green, flash steeping.

You do really need kids gloves with this one to stop it tasting soapy, but this way there is the classic ya shi perfume & slightly nutty aroma, but on an almost green-tea base. Not any citrus bitter, but interesting dry vegetal taste buried under the pearlescent aroma.

Weird tea for sure.

No.4 – Yiwu

Yiwu puerh is the first classic terroir taste that I recognise & have grown to love. There is something about the slightly rounded vegetal-ness that, along with the bitter, provide me with later-stage steeps that I enjoy quite a lot, in the Yiwu puerh I have tried so far. & this one is exactly the same.

Part of me is biased into thinking these are ‘basic’ in taste, but they are small cakes & I like how these teas fully center on certain characteristics, & I am going to enjoy drinking these blind till I can pick out these nuances better.

Took a few to open up the ball.

first major steep & there is a nutty aroma, but the tea body makes it comes across like a really good black, without the malty taste. Something in the way it feels on the tongue & goes down your throat is 100% like that.

The nutty roasty aroma is really hard to place. Its different from everything else I have tried. Apart from LP’s Coffee & Oolong blend. its a bit like that. Nice.

Taste-wise, if I were to drink this blind I would swear its a black tea, whatever the combo of flavours/body/feel/aroma is, it seems to be in that area. Fruit is ever-so-slight orange or apricots, slightly woodsy but without a malty character. Perhaps a bit of chocolate, it does slightly taste of sheng puerh (of which the leaves are the kind usually used for that)

Its quite soft & rounded, but when pushed an interesting sour note comes out which is covered in a vale of lightly roastedness. It still tastes a bit like LP’s coffee beans & Oolong, but with a different base. Its a bit salty & peanutty.

An interesting tea, one of which my brain puts into the black/red tea zone rather than Puerh or Oolong.